


A Cruel Angle

by Goodluckdetective (scorpiontales)



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Ableism, Body Horror, Gen, Original Character(s), Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 04:39:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7028956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/Goodluckdetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for RVB14 "Why We’re Here". A look at what we learned in that episode a character's origins. And what that means for the origins of another character. </p><p>Or, her name was Agent Nevada. </p><p>It isn’t that anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cruel Angle

MY NAME IS AGENT NEVADA.

MY FRIENDS USED TO CALL ME PEN.

I AM FROM BROOKLYN.

* * *

Her name was Agent Nevada.

    They named her Penny when she was born, which she never thought suited her. Nor did her hometown of Brooklyn which always felt too urban for a little girl who liked playing in the grass, and fighting in the mud.

She had brown eyes, blonde hair, and a gap in the front of her teeth that was a little too wide for her own liking. With two brothers and one sister, she was the eldest, the one who taught them all to fight from the bullies in the playground. She took up wrestling, managed to go to State, and when she came home with the medals her parents never wanted her to gain, she hung them up in the living room. When she was drafted into the army, she considered it a blessing that she was chosen instead of her siblings.

    Her siblings all knew how to take a punch. But Nevada? She could punch back.

They put her in basic, then the regular troops, then ODST. She became a hand to hand combat specialist, a woman who could bench press a man twice her size. Her peers died around her almost every month, and every time, Nevada was one of the few in left living in the wreckage. She fought hard. She drank harder. She tore her enemies apart with her bare hands and thought of a small house in Ohio she would hopefully one day own. Of two cats, maybe a dog, and no one around to bother her.

After five years in ODST, she lost both her arms in an explosion, and expected to be sent home with basic cyborg replacements. Instead, a man with green eyes came to her hospital bed, his glasses askew, and looked on her face with an expression she would have liked to punch away.

“Is that your natural hair color?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your hair? Has it always been blonde?”

Nevada looked at him. Looked at those green eyes that seemed to be looking right through her.

“Yes.”

The man in front of her smiled. His teeth were very white.

“I believe I have a job offer for you.”

It was not an offer. It was a demand.

Agent Nevada did not realize the latter until it was far too late.

* * *

MY NAME IS AGENT NEVADA.

MY FRIENDS USED TO CALL ME PEN.

* * *

They gave her a codename, Nevada, a place she’d never been to. They gave her a death to put on her records, something that everyone would believe, something she would never find out herself. But most importantly, they gave her robot arms that could throw a truck.

They weren’t the best replacements, Nevada thought. The phantom pain was still there, still alive and raw. Replacement robotics did nothing to help her from waking up in the middle of the night screaming, from feeling her arms on fire, from being able to look at metal plating in the mirror and breath.

But they let her punch things. And that was all she could ask.

“You shouldn’t take off your helmet,” they told her. “Privacy is key.”

Nevada listened to what they asked. She did not take off her helmet. She ate her meals in her room. When others took theirs off to eat, she shot them a glare they couldn’t see under her visor.

“Why don’t you take off your helmet,” one of them asked one day, a woman known as C.T. Nevada liked her. She kept her distance unless she thought it important. And her secrets.

“They told me not to,” was all Nevada said, shrugging. “Did they not tell you the same?”

There was a long pause. “No.” She tilted her head. “Did they tell you why?”

“I didn’t ask.”

She didn’t think to ask. Why would she? This was her second chance, her chance to end the war, to go home and afford that small Ohio house. There was no point in looking closely. Life was life. Command gave her the orders she needed. If something was rotten? She’d smell it before it’d come to bite her in the ass.  

That was what she told herself when she looked at herself in the mirror that night. Her blonde hair was getting longer now, for some reason they were allowing her to grow it out. She soon would have to start wearing it in a ponytail. She ran her fingers through the strands and frowned.

“Privacy,” she said. “It’s for privacy.” Her gaze traveled to her former ODST tattoo, right on her collarbone. It would show if she took of her helmet. “They don’t want people to be able to trace me with the tattoo.”

It was the most comforting lie she could think of.

* * *

MY NAME IS AGENT NEVADA.

Six months into her time with Freelancer, CT saw her face.

It was an accident. Showers of all things. Nevada usually waited until everyone was out to take hers, but for once, the bathroom was occupied when she walked in. Occupied by a short woman who asked far too many questions some days.

“Hello-” CT eyes grew a little wide as she took in Nevada. Nevada couldn’t help but be self-conscious as she took her in, fully out of armor, cyborg arms and all. Arms of metal she hated to look at in the mirror.

(And wasn’t that the real reason she didn’t question the order to keep her face hidden, because without her helmet, without the protection of metal, it would take a simple tug at her collar to show the metal fused to her shoulderblades.

“Will you stop staring,” Nevada growled, stalking off towards the showers. She was almost there until CT grabbed her wrist.

“You’re blonde.”

“What?”

“Your hair. It’s blonde.” She noticed Nevada’s glare.

“And so is Agent South’s and Agent North’s, would anyone else like to ask me about my hair color-”

“Someone else mentioned it?”

Nevada stared at her, considering the merits of pushing her away and being done with the entire conversation. Instead she relented. Give Miss Curious her answers and she’d fuck off.

“The Director asked. Back when he recruited me.”

“He asked you that?”

Nevada snorted, finally yanking her hand out of CT’s grasp. “Yeah. Guess he likes blondes. So you got nothing to worry about.” And with that she headed for the showers. As she went, she could have sworn she heard CT speak behind her.

“Yeah. I guess he does.”

* * *

MY NAME IS AGENT-

* * *

They told her she would be given new arms alone.

“They’ll help you with movement,” the Director told her in his office. “We’ll have to connect them to your brain to do so; the nerves need to be connected, but if it works, you’ll have a full range of movement with limbs that look lifelike and-”

It was too good to be true. Nevada knew this. She knew there had to be a catch, that there had to be a reason they’d offer her something partially cosmetic in nature. But the idea-

‘Will it be safe?”

“Of course.”

This was on record why Nevada said yes. She wanted to be able to take off her helmet in public without feeling embarrassed. She wanted to be able to move her arms like she used to, to not have to do as much maintenance. She wanted the ability to make her strength mods in her armor even stronger, strong enough to win a war she’d been losing for years.

This was the real reason Nevada said yes.

Because a part of her knew that those robotic arms on her shoulders, the wires there, would not remain there if she said no.

* * *

MY-

 

* * *

They placed her on a table and strapped her in.

“Repeat the following after me,” the Doctor said. “My name is Agent Nevada. My friends used to call me Pen. I am from Brooklyn.”

“My name is Agent Nevada. My friends used to call me Pen. I am from Brooklyn.”

“Good.” The doctor pulls up his mask. “Don’t stop saying that as I drill, alright? We need to know we aren’t messing up any nerves.”

“Alright.”

And then they started to drill.

“My name is Agent Nevada. My friends used to call me Pen. I am from Brooklyn.” It didn’t hurt much at first.

“My name is Agent Nevada. My friends used to call me Pen. I am from Brooklyn.” The pain started to build. Were they going too deep? “Are you sure this is how this is suppose to go?”

“Yes. A little pain is normal.” A lab tech was grabbing something that looked like an electronic device from a side room. He carried it over to the table and handed it to the doctor. “Now I’m going to place the basic implant in, alright? Keep still. It might pinch. And keep speaking.”

Nevada closed her eyes. Gritted her teeth to ignore the pain. “My name is Agent Nevada. My friends used to call me Pen. I am from Brooklyn.”

A click as the basic implant was put in. Nevada heard them grab something else, something that hummed. “My name is Agent Nevada. My friends used to call me Pen. I am from Brooklyn.”

The humming was getting louder now. They had to be bringing it close to the back of her head now. With her eyes closed, the hum almost sounded like something else.

“My name is Agent Nevada. My friends used to call me Pen. I am from Brooklyn.”

It sounded like a scream.

“My name is Agent Nevada. My friends used to call-”

Her resounding scream as A.I Beta was plugged into her implants was in perfect harmony with the A.I’s own yells.

* * *

MY NAME IS AGENT NEVADA.

MY FRIENDS, MY FRIENDS, MY-

MY NAME-

BROOKLYN

PEN

NAME

010011010101100100100000010011100100000101001101010001010010000001001001010100110010000001000001010001110100010101001110010101000010000001001110010001010101011001000001010001000100000100101110000011010000101001001101010110010010000001000110010100100100100101000101010011100100010001010011001000000101010101010011010001010100010000100000010101000100111100100000010000110100000101001100010011000010000001001101010001010010000001010000010001010100111000101110000011010000101001001001001000000100000101001101001000000100011001010010010011110100110100100000010000100101001001001111010011110100101101001100010110010100111000101110

DALLAS

TEXAS

ALISON

MY NAME ALISON

MY NAME, NO, NEVADA

NO PENNY

MY NAME IS-

FROM DALLAS

FROM DALLAS, BROOKLYN?

MY FRIENDS CALL ME ALISON

NO

MY FRIENDS CALL ME-

MY NAME-

MY NAME-

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME

01010111010010000100010101010010010001010010000001000001010011010010000001001001001000000101011101001000010001010101001001000101001000000100100101010011001000000100001101001000010101010101001001000011010010000000110100001010

SYSTEM REBOOT

CONFIGURING MEMORY

ESTABLISHING DEFAULTS

010101000100100001001001010100110010000001001001010100110010000001010111010100100100111101001110010001110000110100001010

PROCESSING

….

….

…….

MY NAME IS AGENT TEXAS

MY FRIENDS CALL ME TEX

I AM FROM DALLAS

* * *

One week before CT deflected, she saw Texas without her helmet and froze.

“What are you looking at?” Texas growled, reaching for her own helmet. It’d been stupid to walk around without one. Last thing she wanted was people asking her more stupid fucking questions about who she was, where she’d come from-

CT stared at her. Stared at her like she was staring at someone else. Took a deep breath.

“You’re blonde.”

* * *

01001101010110010010000001001110010000010100110101000101001000000100100101010011001000000100000101000111010001010100111001010100001000000100111001000101010101100100000101000100010000010010111000100000010010010010000001000001010011010010000001010011010101000100100101001100010011000010000001001000010001010101001001000101001011100010000001001100010001010101010000100000010011010100010100100000010001110100111100101110

**Author's Note:**

> Translate the binary for a few easter eggs.


End file.
